Hate to See Your Heart Break
by lespetitesmorts
Summary: An expansion upon my Rizzles Ficlet. Angsty, sad, and emotional. Not based on "Hate to See Your Heart Break" by Paramore, but I did listen to it a lot while I wrote this, so if you want more feels you can give that a go. Based on this gifset: gettingdesperate./post/56567885597/i-love-you-too- but-i-cant-do-this
1. Chapter 1

There are tears in your eyes as the reality of the moment crashes into you.

"He asked you, didn't he?"

The moment you saw that ring on her finger, all of your worst fears came true. Your knees shake; your arms tremble with indecision. She won't even look at you and it only serves to make your hurt and pain shine through as anger.

"You are going to get married, aren't you?"

Your tone is spiteful and indignant while your heart is competing desperately within the confines of your chest in a race it cannot win. Casey's beaten you to the punch. And Jane – Jane said yes because the ring is there and her hand is over her mouth as she, too, starts to cry.

She still won't look you in the eye and it just makes the hole in your soul rip itself wider as the most suffocating feeling of dread spreads itself thickly over your entire being.

"You must have known how much I love you."

It's not the first time you've said those three words to her. It's not the first time you've given her countless exhibits of evidence that you're in love with her.

But it is the first time she hasn't said it back. The distinction is a blunted knife, sawing back and forth, across and through the most fragile heart there ever was.

You can feel your expression harden and it makes it easier for you to hurl your next words at her.

"What lie did you tell yourself every day? What fabrications did you have to make up in your mind to go about life with me this way?"

Your eyes are narrowed and you want to scream. You just need to get all of these emotions out of your brain and then you'll be okay again. Right? You just need to compartmentalize and then everything can go back to the way it was, before all of this.

"I didn't know how to tell you!" And you can tell that it's an admission.

You can feel your heart break and even though you know the origins of almost all the words you've ever had to use in a conversation, there is not a single word which could describe the hurt you're feeling right now.

You know you're shutting down. She can tell, too, because her brow furrows ever so slightly.

"I'm so sorry." The words are strained, like they're genuine, but you can't let yourself believe.

"I do love you," she finally whispers, eyes shut tight, body shaking.

Your heart splinters into microscopic fragments and you shake your head, willing yourself to unhear those perfect words falling from those perfect lips.

"I love you, too," you say, because it's true. "But I can't do this." You take off the necklace she gave you for your thirty-eighth birthday and place it in her hands. You curl her fingers around it so that it doesn't fall and then, on a whim, you bring her hand to your lips and place a gentle kiss there.

You don't say goodbye.

Two hours later, you find yourself sobbing quietly in your single First-class seat with a one-way boarding pass to London.

There was no gloriously beautiful reunion scene as the flight boarded. No jaw-droppingly stunning brunette detective came rushing up to you to demand you to stay. You know it's irrational, but you'd hoped for it anyway. You'd hoped that you could be enough, you could be what she wanted; what she needed.

You're used to being left behind. You're not so used to doing the leaving.

When the flight attendant offers you a beverage, you ask for their finest red and hint that she should leave the bottle. You watch as she takes in your designer clothes and run-down appearance before she nods and disappears.

An empty house awaits you when you land. A clean slate, a fresh start. You can pick the mantle of Queen of the Dead right back up off the dusty ground and this time fully embrace it.

You won't be able to forget about her, but at least you can learn from her.

Anyone you let in to your heart only ends up breaking it in the end


	2. Chapter 2

It's lonely. Cold. You draw your trench coat closer around your body, a vain attempt to keep some of your warmth with you. Your legs shift on the wet park bench, the soft material of your yoga pants rubbing against your water-logged skin. The only good part about London is the weather; it's perfectly reflected your emotions ever since you've been here. A near-constant downpour has been your stalwart companion.

It's been three weeks. Three weeks since you've seen her, since you've touched her, since you choked out a goodbye and left your entire world behind you.

Three weeks of trudging through your new life, having people's faces blur together in your periphery, finding ways to remember all of her touches and words even though she's never set foot in this country, let alone your new morgue or new house.

Everything you see, you can trace back to her. A click pen found its way onto your desk, and all you could see was her clicking it madly while twirling her hair around a finger, talking to you over a dead body. There was a globe on the filing cabinet the first time you entered your new office. You saw her slim fingers twirling it on its axis, asking you about all the places she's never been to, but you have. Asking covertly if maybe one day she can go. Maybe with you.

The destruction of that possibility is a roaring gape in your chest, and it sets off a series of other painful explosions inside your heart; all of the other possibilities you'll never get to have with her.

How do you continue? How can you keep going? How do you cope?

You stopped being able to cope by yourself when you had that bottle of wine on the flight here. You stopped being able to function properly when you missed that fibre which broke the case.

That was yesterday.

Today you'd pulled some strings and gotten a leave of absence for an as of yet unknown amount of time. One of the perks of being a wealthy socialite.

It's cold. You wish that it was six months ago, that you are in Boston, and that it's movie night. You wish you are on your couch, wrapped up in the warmth that is the only hot-blooded, American-Italian woman you'll ever love.

You wish you were a male American soldier, who moved to the U.S. during your childhood, and who went to high school with one Jane Clementine Rizzoli. You went to Afghanistan and got hurt. You came back, were an absolute ass to her, but she still loved you anyway. Somehow.

Or an FBI agent who'd visited a couple of times, yet still managed to fall into bed with her. With Jane. Just saying her name sends shivers down your spine. Or is that the chill of the rain?

You wish…

You wish a lot of things.

Right now all you want is for your angel to find you, to love you, and to stay with you. To be your home, to let you into her heart.

But you suppose the open bottle of vodka awaiting you in the kitchen of your deserted house is an acceptable second best.

Your limbs are stiff from the mild beginnings of an onset of hypothermia, but as you walk back to your place, you can feel the blood slowly start to warm through again.

Part of you doesn't want it to. Part of you wants to stay on this bench until more than just your extremities are numb. If you could just wait here until you couldn't feel anymore, wouldn't that be better, easier? If refusing to move would take the pain in your heart away, would that not be worth it?

But taking the hurt away would mean taking your memories, and not all of them reek with the loss and defeat. Some of them are perfect and full of you and her and no one else and you wouldn't dare trade those for the world. No one could make you part with those. Not for anything in the entire world.

* * *

The house is dark when you get there. Lifeless. Empty. A perfect representation of yourself. You enter the kitchen out of habit and locate the bottle with ease.

It burns. The first couple always do, but then the pain subsides and you start to float away, to your happy place.


	3. Chapter 3

For the first time since you've moved here, you turn on your old Boston cell phone.

_Forty seven missed calls._

_One hundred and thirty four new test messages._

You pause before clicking forward. How many of them are from her? How many from the others you left behind? When did she start? When did she stop? Has she stopped? Are you but a memory now? An image in a photograph stuck in black and white while the rest of the world passes by in vivid Technicolor?

Two months and your entire relationship is relegated to the past tense, to numbers and quantities which no longer hold any value in your heart.

You know that it's the wrong decision. You know you'd be better off smashing the phone against the wall, or setting it in a fire to melt away, but knowing that doesn't make you do it. Instead, you open the first text message, the oldest one.

_Maura? Where are you? Don't leave mad, please, come back!_

Your breath caught in your chest and you force yourself to exhale. You click the next one.

_I chased after you, but you disappeared too quickly. Maur, come back and talk to me, please!_

She chased after you. _She_ chased after _you_. Your chest constricts and you're struck with the urge to give up your pathetic fallacy of a life in this new country. You're nothing without her and you don't want to be nothing. You've spent your whole life being nothing and you don't want to go back to that kind of an existence. You used to matter to someone and now that you've had a taste, you desperately want it back.

You punch down on the desire. As you progress, you hypothesise that her texts will turn mean and scared and hurt, and in turn she'll hurt you and she'll hurt you perfectly because she's the only one who ever knew you that well.

You're afraid to continue. You just want to stay in this moment, this one, beautiful moment where you can pretend she wanted you just as badly as you wanted her. You can pretend that you've always meant more to her than Casey has and that more than anything she wants to be with you. The dream floating around in your consciousness is tantalizing and taunting, haunting you in your waking nightmare.

You've never wanted a life without her, yet here you stand in the midst of that very torment.

You pick one from the middle.

_Maura, where have you gone? Ma said you left her a note leaving her the house. Where are you? Talk to me, Maur, let me come find you. Please._

Are you imagining the desperate plea in her tone? Is it simply your projection of your innermost hopes that gives them that sad and lonely feeling?

You don't want it to be. More than anything, you want her to miss you, you want to know that you meant something to her, that even though Casey meant more, you weren't _nothing_ to her.

You pull your knees up to your chest and curl into a ball on your bedroom floor. You pick another at random and this time a sob escapes you, setting off the domino effect of your spiraling emotions.

_Maur, I miss you. I miss you so much and I'm so sorry. Please. Don't do this. I can fix this; fix us. Maura, please._

Your limbs are shaking, eyes closed tight, as you work through the myriad of sentimental implosions coursing through your amygdala and threading out through the nervous network which makes you who you are.

You crumble and fall, an old unwanted cookie tumbling from fingers which no longer want you there.

You hate yourself in this instant because you press the button that plays the most recent message and her sinful rasp of a voice comes through the phone's speaker. You gasp at the first note of her.

"Maura, come home. I don't know where you are and I'm worried. If you don't come back, I swear to God there is nowhere you are where I can't find you. I'm coming for you, Maura. I promise."

You can't stop the automatic ascent of your mood at her vow to find you. You want her to find you. You want her to come stomping up your new front steps and pound on your door before barging her way into your new abode. You want her fierce gaze trained on you, analysing every move you make and every word you tell her. You just want her here, and if that means you get the full wrath of pissed off Jane Rizzoli, you'll welcome it with open arms and a smile. It is worth so much more than anything you have anywhere, after all.

For the first time in months, you fall asleep with a ghost of a smile upon your lips, and the first seed of hope blossoming in your heart.


	4. Chapter 4

A resounding knock wakes you from your slumber and before you can stop yourself, your mind is in full-on 'it must be Jane' mode. You run to the door and hurl it open, caring nothing for elegance or reservation. Your heart drops when you realise that it isn't her.

"Hello there, I'm Thomas Singleby, your next door neighbour." He's taller than Jane, with a touch of salt in his black pepper hair. Jane's more slender than he is as well and her cheekbones are more defined. She wears her slacks lower on the hips and her shirt is undone one button more. Her arms- you realize you got lost inside of your head and that the man in front of you is awaiting some sort of response to whatever he just told you.

"Maura Isles," you respond quietly, covering your chest with your arms and leaning back slightly into the safety of your home.

"Well, Ms. Isles, I just thought you should know that there's been a car across the street for almost three hours now, and the driver hasn't left his seat. He seems to be oriented toward your house and I thought you should have the head's up about him."

You tilt your head to the side, measuring him up, and try to employ your gut instinct; something Jane swears that even you have.

"Thank you, Mr. Singleby. I'll look into it." You can't summon a reassuring smile for the life of you, and you can feel concern leaking out of every pore of this elegant stranger's face as he stares at you.

"Would you like me to telephone the police for you?" Searching eyes scrutinise your face. You shake your head softly.

"No thank you, that won't be necessary," you say. You're sure it's simply some sort of a misunderstanding. Jane isn't here and she's not coming for you. Besides, the man said the person in the car was a 'he' and if there's one thing you're sure of, it's that Jane could never be mistaken for a male. Not with that cutting figure and that rambunctious head of hair.

"I'll leave you to it, then." And although he seems to hesitate for a moment, he does leave without turning back.

You close the door and then lean heavily against it, your heart rate increasing, your even breaths turning to shuddering gasps. _It couldn't be,_ you say to yourself. You murmur it under your breath until your heart beats slow and you almost manage to convince yourself.

You fling yourself from the door and dash straight for the kitchen. Is it weak? Perhaps. But once the vodka passes by your lips, it won't matter because- because she'll be there with you. It's the reason you turned to the hard stuff in the first place. If you drink enough, you can catch glimpses of her, blurred and out of focus, in the periphery of your field of vision. And if you drink more than that, well, each swallow only brings her closer to high definition. You can sit and stare for as long as you like until you pass out and she swirls back into your memories.

You take the bottle with you to the couch. It would be a true homage to your upbringing if you simply poured a large glass to bring with you, but there's something about drinking it straight from the container that makes it better somehow.

You curl up in your nest: a thick blanket and a soft pillow against the couch cushions. You imbibe mouthful after mouthful, waiting and watching the entire time. Your mind muddles and fogs. Loud raps resound through your ears, followed quickly by the heavenly sound of her voice, drifting in from far away.

It sounds almost as if she's saying your name. You've never imagined her doing that before. Always thought it would hurt too much; that your imperfect name from those spectacular lips would tear you apart, but you were so incredibly wrong.

It sounds just like heaven, coming down to meet you here on Earth. It sounds like safety and love and home. Your eyelids start to droop, but as she startles into the corner of your eye you grasp at the straws to keep them open. You start to smile as she comes toward you, and your struggle stops.

Your eyes close and you swear it feels exactly like her perfect, scarred palm against your cheek before you sail away.


	5. Chapter 5

The fabric beneath you is distractingly soft and surprisingly warm. You trail your fingers across the knit and freeze when it seems to ripple beneath your touch. You hardly dare to breathe. Your pillow brushes against your cheek and your eyes fly open, your legs and hands scrambling to flee.

"Easy," the intruder says softly, holding out a hand to steady your wobbly knees. Pupils dilate as you take in the vision before you. You're shaking your head and moving away before you've even really processed the scene before you.

She sits up on the couch slowly, lightly rubbing a hand over her stomach where your head had lain not moments before. Her legs twist so her feet meet the floor and her gaze unflinchingly meets yours. Her features are set in a wary seriousness; you can't help yourself.

You laugh. "I have gone absolutely insane." You peer closer at her from across the distance you placed between the two of you. "I've never imagined you in such vividness before. It's very impressive. My mind remembers more minute, intrinsic details about you than I would have hypothesised."

She rises slowly, arms loosely at her sides with the palms toward you. "Maura, I'm right here."

You raise an eyebrow at her in jest. "Of course you are, of course." Your eyes flicker to the empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table. "Must have hit that bottle harder than I previously conceived."

She cocks a hip and rolls her eyes in true Rizzoli fashion. "What do I have to do to convince you that I'm not a figment of your alcoholic brain?"

You snort. You take in the tousled dark hair, the signature slacks, belt, and cotton t-shirt. Your eyes flit around the room and notice her boots and blazer by the door. Your imagination is starting to scare you. She's only ever been fuzzy at the edges at best. But you know it's even crazier for you to believe that she's actually here in front of you. Implausible, and virtually impossible.

So you ask for something you've always wanted, but never gotten, not even in your wildest dreams. Why not try for it now, what have you got to lose? Nothing. You already lost her.

"Kiss me."

Your image of her doesn't even hesitate, doesn't register a sprig of surprise or shock. She simply strides forward confidently, a hint of her usual swagger underlying each step. When she's in front of you, she stops and so does the heartbeat in your chest. Your palms turn clammy and mouth goes dry at the teasing thought that maybe your mind will give you this one chance to kiss her.

"Are you sure?" She asks, an undertone you can't discern in her whiskey voice. You can't breathe, can't speak, you can't even think. But your body knows what it wants so desperately that somehow you manage to nod.

When her hand carefully cups your cheek, your breath shudders back into you and your heart beats faster than you've ever known it to in the past. Her fingers feel so real, so warm and caring against the chill of your skin in the afterglow of yet another drunken night. Her nose grazes yours, moving toward you and then pulling back slightly; you follow her, drunk on the very presence of Jane Rizzoli.

Her thumb caresses your zygomatic bone and then her soft lips are against yours and it is better than anything you've ever known. It's better than 110% exam grades in university, better than any sense of accomplishment you've ever added to your resume. It's fire and ice and perfection and chaos. It's beautiful and it's destructive because if this is how amazing your imagination can conjure it up, just think for one second about how blissful reality would be.

Your lips never part and her tongue never leaves her own mouth, but this is the moment in time which you wish you could freeze forever and sear onto your memory. It's the moment you want to relive over and over again, until your dying day.

Your hand goes to the back of her neck to keep her with you and you start to play with the fine hairs there. Her other hand rests gently on your hip and you can feel the heat of her burning through your clothing, setting your skin aflame with desire and longing.

The rising crescendo of life to this point in time crashes in the background, heightening the allure of this instant. It's how love tastes, how magic feels, how music slips into your veins. This is the best drug you've ever gotten the opportunity to study, and oh, how you wish you could conduct innumerable studies and research projects about the ecstasy found in her lips.

She finally pulls away, but doesn't stray far. Your foreheads rest against each other; your eyes remain closed. You don't want to open them. You don't want her to leave you, not now, not now that you've tasted what heaven must be.

"I'm still here, Maura." You know that it's her voice, but you didn't see her lips move so you can't be absolutely certain that it's her.

"Look at me," she whispers, and your heart develops fault lines at the tenderness in the words. You shake your head and try to hide a sniffle. There are tears leaking out of the corners of your eyes because you know that as soon as you try to feast your sights upon her, she'll disappear and this will be yet another fantasy.

A lone finger of hers traces your mandible. She kisses the tip of your nose.

The tears come harder.

"Open your eyes," she chokes out softly, and only then do you realize that your mind has given her heartfelt tears as well.

You prepare yourself, steeling your heart for the shattering disappointment which you know is right around the corner.

You open your eyes and gasp.

She doesn't disappear.


	6. Chapter 6

You freeze and she mimics you perfectly, her statuesque figure stilling completely.

You take a step back. Her gaze on you is concerned, observant.

Her voice is cautious, "Maur?"

You shake your head viciously in full-on denial. She can't be here, she can't have cared; she can't have _kissed_ you. "No."

"Maura, please, it's just me-"

"What're you doing here?" You demand lowly. You feel like an animal caged in the very pits of hell. Your back presses up against the wall and you use it to support your weakening knees. It's too much. It can't be real. Please, you must be dreaming.

"I came looking for you. I told you I would." Her eyes are so sincere and you want nothing more to believe. Your eyes flicker to her hand and, oh, _where's her ring?_

"Why?" You ask and your voice is so small and feeble, you can hardly believe you're the source of the word.

"Because I fell apart." Her shoulders slump with the admission, her chest deflates and a sad sigh escapes her.

"I can tell you all about it, if you want." Her eyes rise from the floor and meet yours for a brief second. You quickly look away. "Sit with me."

It's like the power she held over you back in Boston has come soaring back with a vengeance. You find yourself sitting with her on the couch. Granted, you're as far away from her as you can possibly get, but still.

You don't know what to call the sensation in your chest. Happiness? Anxiety? Disbelief? Malcontent? Everything is swirling around too quickly for you to focus and isolate something. You let it run wild, a gripping maelstrom of emotion wreaking havoc on your soul.

You stay silent.

"I – at first I thought you were just ignoring me for a bit. Needed to get some time away to think or something, I don't know. And so I let you go after chasing after you. I was okay at first. Well, not okay, but I wasn't a complete mess. I thought it was only temporary and that any day you'd be back. But a day turned into two, turned into a week."

She's been wringing her hands together out of nervous habit. You use every ounce of willpower within you to quell the desire to reach out across the distance between you and still them.

She sniffles and you feel like you may die.

"I called Ma, asked her to see how you were doing. I – I thought you'd want me to stay away. But then you were gone and it was like the world stopped. I stopped."

Her hands follow her words and hold themselves motionless.

"I looked for you, but I couldn't find you. All I had was your name on a plane manifest heading to Paris. I asked around, called in favours, but _I couldn't find you_."

She weeps, great tears escaping her lashes, running down her skin.

"I left Casey. Almost left work, except I knew I'd need it to find you. And then yesterday Frost told me you turned on your cell and he traced the GPS here. I was already heading to the airport."

It's too much. She left Casey, the only man she'd ever told you she'd loved? Almost left her _job_, the very thing that she felt defined her more than anything?

It couldn't be.

Your brain cannot compute such outlandish claims and yet the face staring back at you is completely sincere an earnest.

"Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Your voice cracks and breaks throughout those two sentences. You feel a pinch of guilt at the look of pain across her features from the mistrust in your questions, but you don't take them back.

"I'm here because I love you, Maura." She drops a hand to her pant pocket and slowly withdraws a chain. She considers it for a moment before extending it to you. "All I want is you, in whatever capacity you can give me. If I've missed the chance for something more than friendship, I'll never forgive myself, but I won't contest your decision. I was an idiot and nothing can make up for that. But if I haven't missed my opportunity to be a part of something _more_ with you, then all I want is the opportunity to earn your trust back and get us there again."

She takes a step forward, hand still outstretched. "I just want you."

You don't move immediately. Your mind is too busy processing everything she's just told you, trying to make sense of all of these new revelations.

"Okay," you nod. "Okay." You take a step forward yourself and pluck the necklace from her nimble fingers. It's been a weight you've missed these past months and as you fasten it around your neck again, you let out a relieved sigh.

You're hers again. And you've never felt better.


End file.
